ABSTRACT
This chapter is about those support functions and resources that come from or are used outside the ‘support’ department. We support professionals certainly have no monopoly in the market for support services – in fact we do not even have an equal share. Most user support is actually done by people employed outside the user support function. And I do not mean that bit of support that we buy in, like hardware maintenance or network changes, although that is relevant too – I mean the bulk of IT user support, which is performed by those who, although professionals in their own field, are amateurs in the field of IT support.
